Squid at Music Hall of Williamsburg (photo by Kevin McGann)

 

Squid have been described as post punk but their music goes way deeper than that. My first show was at Baby’s All Right in late 2021 and I was blown away. The perfect mix of raw energy, infectious beats, spaced out keyboard/electronic interludes, guitar driven, trumpet laced, scream therapy mayhem. And they’ve only gotten better. This week’s return to NYC saw them destroy both Bowery Ballroom and Music Hall of Williamsburg on back-to-back nights.

 

I got to cover Wednesday’s show at Music Hall of Williamsburg as my first gig for Full Time Aesthetic and I can’t think of a better way to kick it off. Squid set the tone right from the start with the intro of “Nines” segueing into a ferocious version of “Peel St,” while the crowd chanted along “You don’t remember?!” From there they had a mix of newer song “Fugue” with older single “Sludge,” and tracks from their debut album that included “Boy Racers”, “Documentary Filmmaker”, and “GSK”. They closed their set with the 1-2 punch of “Narrator” and “Pamphlets” which saw them joined onstage by members of opener Deliluh on keys and sax.

 

Speaking of Danish/Canadian duo Deliluh, they were a band I was unfamiliar with before this week’s shows but I can’t wait to dig through their catalog. Their music is dense, layered, dark, brooding and trance like at times. Yet they mix in guitar and sax and bring an organic element to their electronic sound and I was pretty mesmerized. 

 

All in all it was a great fucking night and I tried my best to capture the energy in that room, though you can never really capture how powerful it felt. 

 

Scroll down for pics of the show (photos by Kevin McGann)

 

DELILUH

 

 

SQUID